Blogs

Our blogs provide fresh, impassioned and authoritative commentary and insight about the variety of civil-liberties issues that the ACLU of Michigan takes up each day in our courts, governments and communities.

Get Involved

With the help of dedicated volunteers and community activists, the ACLU of Michigan works to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the individual rights and liberties that are guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Get Help

The ACLU of Michigan is one of more than 50 affiliates in the United States. As such, we encourage you to know as much as possible about your civil liberties. Further, if you feel those liberties have been violated, we suggest you submit a complaint. We only accept complaints that occur within the State of Michigan. If your complaint arose in a state other than Michigan, you must contact the ACLU office in that state.

About Us

Since our founding in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union has led the fight to conserve our most precious liberties. Through the passion of our supporters, we have grown from a roomful of civil liberties activists to an organization of more than 500,000 active members and supporters with 54 state affiliate offices as well as a legislative office in Washington, DC.

Free Speech

Freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and is guaranteed to all Americans. As a core founding principle, free speech has a long history in America. Safeguarding this cherished freedom is the ACLU’s ongoing commitment. Since 1920, the ACLU has worked to preserve our freedom of speech.

Blog: Independence Day Parade Reflects the Many Faces of Democracy

2017-07-07 00:00:00

By Kelly Ehrenreich

Sixty ACLU members, volunteers and staff represented the ACLU of Michigan in the Ann Arbor Independence Day parade earlier this week. Marching through streets lined with rows of people of assorted ages, races and political stripes, we chanted over and over, "This is what democracy looks like.”

And as I joined that walk through Ann Arbor, I realized just how true that chant rang.

Billboards In Arabic, English, and Spanish Intended to Remind the Public That ‘We The People’ Means Everyone

2017-06-05 00:00:00

In an effort to remind the public about its First Amendment rights and to reassure immigrants that constitutional protections extend to them as well, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan on Monday launched a public-education campaign that features the First Amendment printed in Arabic, Spanish and English.

The “We the People” campaign rolled out with the unveiling of an electronic billboard featuring the First Amendment in all three languages posted on Cobo Center in downtown Detroit. The ad will appear on the billboard throughout June.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit today demanding government documents about the on-the-ground implementation of President Trump’s Muslim bans in Michigan.

Anti-cop Speech is Not a Crime. It’s Protected by the First Amendment

2017-02-23 00:00:00

Freedom of speech is being threated this week by a criminal prosecution brought by the State of Michigan against Nheru Littleton, a Detroit man being charged with making a “terroristic threat” for statements he posted on Facebook last year in the tense period following the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and the subsequent attack on Dallas officers during a protest there.

Pushing back against chilling efforts to criminalize free speech on social media, the ACLU of Michigan will appear at a court hearing tomorrow in defense of a Detroit man charged with directing “terroristic threats” at police officers after he vented about killing cops in a Facebook post last year.

The Pledge of Allegiance

2016-04-14 00:00:00

Marcus Patton is an African American student at Lincoln Park Middle School who refuses to stand for the daily classroom recitation of the pledge of allegiance. After watching seemingly endless media coverage of black victims killed and brutalized by police, Marcus concluded that the promises and ideals recited in the pledge are not true, and he could not in good conscience participate in the ritual.

Criminalizing "Malicious Communications"

2015-09-11 00:00:00

In September 2015 the ACLU of Michigan wrote to the Plymouth Township Board of Trustees urging them to reconsider a proposed “malicious communications” speech code that would have made it a crime to make a phone call or send a text message with the intent to “annoy any other person” by, among other things, “using vulgar, indecent . . .